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Markus Kayser - Solar Sinter Project

Allan · 692.8K views · 2011-06-28 · 6:07

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Overview

Markus Kayser's Solar Sinter project video shows a machine in the desert using sunlight and sand to 3D print glass objects. It is a short demonstration of desert manufacturing from renewable energy and local material.

On Hacker News

HN references it as prior art whenever solar sintering, sand printing or sunlight-based manufacturing comes up.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2017–2025

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mitthrowaway2 · 2025-08 · Reference

It's probably something similar in concept to Markus Kayser's solar sinterer[1], but with the light being focused onto an optical fiber bundle whose endpoint is moved around in X and Y, rather than moving a basket of regolith. [1] [VIDEO]

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Log_out_ · 2024-08 · Reference

You can also sinter sand into 3d structures. [VIDEO] In theory if you could manufacture lenses and optical fibers, you could 3d print active solar powered structures anywhere where there is enough sun. Imagine a 3d printed little bottlegarden, with a water collector using a heated silicagel cycle printed in situ on mars. Still low atmospheric pressure, but warm and wetter.

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qikInNdOutReply · 2022-10 · Reference

In an old game of mine, there was a monastry driving on wheels through the dessert. The monks spend there days collecting sunlight, smelting sand into "glasstrees", which would then use daylight to collect water (silica gel), pump it up at night (using optic fibres for transport, salt water for storing heat, glass wool for isolation and distills to re-capture the nightly water vapors).. creating a ecosystem in its shade. Nearly all of it made from glas. While the premise might be idiotic scifantasy, the idea to terraform in situ with what you got, is quite neat. [LINK] [VIDEO] Solar Sintering by Markus Kayser Just imagine this driving around on mars, with huge halftransparent balloons over it, which like a parabolic mirror pre-collects the light, printing structures for future ecology with the little light that world offers from the material at hand.

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Sources

Video by Allan, played through YouTube.

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